A group of six teenagers from the USA and six from Rwanda have converged to fight the HIV/Aids pandemic among their fellow youth. Supported by a local NGO Women’s Equality in Access to Care and Treatment(WE-ACT), the six Rwandan girls received their counterparts from Chicago for a one week study tour to learn more about Rwanda and how they can join efforts to fight the pandemic in both countries. WE-ACT is a San Francisco, California based women NGO that aims at promoting gender-based clinical trials and research programs to monitor HIV therapy among women and girls in limited-resource settings. “There are critical issues in the world about HIV/Aids, teenagers need to get involved in the battle against the pandemic to be in a good position to handle these issues. These teenagers you have seen have come to highlight issues that concern them in the battle and what they can do to curb those issues,” Linda Mellis, leading the six girls from Chicago, told The New Times in an interview. Being a worldwide problem, Mellis said that most teenagers are in position to wage war against the pandemic since most of them have been affected by the pandemic through loss of their parents and living in poverty as a result. Mellis added that prevention is the best strategy to slow down the infection rate of the pandemic among the teenagers and that the best way out is involving them. She also said that the Rwandan six girls will travel to the USA for a similar study tour to learn what approach(es) American teenagers are using to fight a winning battle against HIV/Aids. It is the first time WE-ACT Rwanda has organized a girls’ exchange program where teenagers are included in the battle against the pandemic and the NGO intends to extend the program to four more years. According to various reports, one-third of all currently infected individuals in the world are youth, ages 15 to 24, and half of all new infections occur in youth the same age. About 1.7 million new adolescent HIV infections, over half of the world’s total occurs in sub-Saharan Africa. The epidemic has had a shocking effect on most African youth who often lack access to sexual health information and services. Research from around the world shows an alarming degree of misinformation and lack of knowledge about HIV/AIDS among young people, especially young women. AIDS has also orphaned millions of children, and the number is expected to increase as more HIV-infected parents become ill and die over the next 10 years. Ends
